DIY Turmeric Face Mask

11 March, 2010

My skin is oily and prone to cystic acne, and I have tried so SO many things to “fix” my face but nothing works. As I am coming to the nice round age of 30 I’ve relaxed quite a lot about my “flaws” and learned to make peace with myself (most of the time, I’m not a superhero!) A few years ago I had a series of glycolic peels before my wedding, and the beautician who treated me was quite a revelation. She told me that in her experience healthy skin comes from reducing anxiety, and that I shouldn’t feel ashamed about my oily skin because it means I won’t have so many wrinkles in years to come. (To be honest, I kind of like wrinkles!) We spoke about how the beauty industry focuses on things like oily skin to make people feel bad about themselves so they buy cosmetics – it’s just insanity!

So, I don’t buy very many beauty products at all these days; just cleanser, moisturiser and a select few make up products. I do have a bit of fun concocting DIY treatments though! I was chatting with my friend Kathleen about the beauty products she encountered on her recent trip to India, and I noticed that many of them contained turmeric. I have a big bag of lovely turmeric bought from the markets, and thought “AHA! It’s time for a DIY face mask!”

Turmeric face mask

And how! It looks like I have plunged face first into cake batter. Here’s the recipe I used:

2 tblsp besan flour (chick pea flour)
1/4 tsp turmeric
Add milk & honey slowly to make a paste
Apply to face with the back of a spoon and chill out for 10 minutes.
Jump in the shower to wash it off with warm water – requires some gentle rubbing!

I was wearing a towel

Fresh out of the shower, wrapped in a towel I promise! (Even if I wasn’t, what are you gonna do?!) Some people had warned of the turmeric staining my skin, but I have zero staining. Any yellow you see on my face is my actual skin tone (I’m a combination of pink and yellow). My skin feels very soft and most of the redness in my skin has calmed down a lot.

I was pretty impressed with this face mask, and will be doing it again! If you have any DIY beauty treatment recipes, I would love to learn about them. It’d be kind of fun to get some friends together for an afternoon of putting all kinds of crazy batter on our faces!

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  • Jay
    Hey yes, I use something similar. Try egg white, with turmeric powder, neem powder (great for acne) and gram flour to soften the skin. It'll work wonders. Then nourish with combination of pure almond oil + rose essential oil + sandalwood essential oil + neem oil (treatment for acne).

    For every 10ml of pure almond oil add the following essential oils - 5 drops of sandalwood and 5 drops of rose. (Add about 5ml of pure neem oil, but be weary of the smell - personally not keen on it - so only use the neem version in the evening)

    Only apply a couple of drops after washing off the mask to do the trick.

    Hope it helps.
  • samclifford
    So did you make dumplings out of the leftovers?
  • Nice! Michelle Phan on youtube has a few DIY beauty treatments I've tried. One was the egg white mask (she just uses plain egg whites, not mixed with anything, then follows it up with an egg yolk mask) but you mentioned hating the smell :)

    A smell-free one (well, compared to eggs) is this: take one aspirin (non buffered) and dissolve it with a few drops of water. Then, put a few drops of honey on the dissolved aspirin and create a paste, and rub it on your face. Leave it on for 10-15 minutes, then wash off. Aspirin is basically beta hydroxy acid, which is in lots of skincare stuff. It helps with roughness, redness, acne, etc. She says that the downside of it is that it increases sensitivity to the sun after using it, so you can't do it super often (once a week at the most) and be sure to use sunscreen!

    Here's her video on it (I find her voice so relaxing) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Hksg8B4cQ
  • I had really bad acne in my late teens through to mid twenties. I kept a number of large pharmaceutical companies afloat through that time and tried all sorts of things to either cure or hide the blemishes - some shark extract spray was the weirdest, and I persevered with a concoction that a Chinese herbalist brewed up for a while there.

    Then one day I decided I wasn't going to stress about how I looked or what was on my face anymore - lo and behold, three weeks later I had a mostly clear face for the first time in years.

    One of the practical outcomes of not being ashamed of your face is that you don't instinctively hide your face with your hands, hence a lot less contact between face and hands - bad skin doesn't respond well to lots of touching in my experience.

    The most that has ever touched my face since has been either plain white Velvet soap, soapless cleansers or ye olde faithful - good splash of water.

    My beautiful face has also appreciated the day a few years back when I switched from foamy shaving creams to a soapless shaving creme that contains tea tree extracts. Simple has been well and truly best for me.
  • Interrobang! I love it.

    Oh, and the face mask is nice, too. Haha.
  • makia
    I like this mask: Try mashing a tomato and putting it on your face for about 20 minutes, then rinsing it off with warm water, then cool rinse and moisturise. It's really good for when your skin is feeling oily.

    Mashed papaya on the face is good too, it's supposed to be clearing/clarifying/brightening. :)
  • kakariki
    he he! how fun! I'd be worried about the stain too knowing what it does to my kitchen. But looks like an ace way to lush yourself up.

    xox
  • I was a tiny bit worried because it is such a powerful little spice! I use a lot of beetroot and there are splishes and splashes of magenta EVERYWHERE.
  • At our recent pretty pretty pretty party, I whisked egg whites and added oatmeal and honey. As the egg white dries, it makes your skin feel all nice and tight, but the oatmeal was all chunky and clumpy and fell off everywhere. My skin felt amazingly soft and lovely afterwards though.
  • I have done that one before! The egg smell was a bit awful unfortunately, and Nick whinged about the smell being stuck in the bathroom drain for a week. HAH!
  • Yay, you do have a bit more room than my tiny unit! I will confer with you over a date in the next couple of months and we'll send out invites.
  • Your skin does look really calm after the mask. I will definitely organise the girls for a DIY beauty afternoon, maybe with champagne!
  • I can do it at my place, we've got a bit of room! I think it's a great idea.
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